Family Reunion, Nancy Thayer [the kiss of deception read online .txt] 📗

well. She could see how he clutched his hands into fists at his sides, as he always did when something was unfair. “I never meant to hurt you.”

“Well, I never meant to be hurt,” Peter replied, without a hint of sarcasm. “Ari, come on. I can’t believe what you’re saying.” He shook his head. “We…we’re going to get married.”

Peter reached for her hand. Ari moved away quickly, sitting sideways on a bench, drawing her legs up to her chest, making herself as small and as untouchable as possible. “I’ll take care of canceling the wedding arrangements,” she told him.

“That’s certainly big of you. I feel much better now.” Peter paced up and down the bricks, running his hand through his thick red hair. He stopped in front of Ari. “I had no idea. You gave me no warning.”

“But I did, Peter. You just never listen to me.”

“Come on, Ari. Don’t be like this.”

“Please, Peter, you know I’ve been wanting to tell you. I’ve told you I needed to talk to you, but you always said ‘later’ or that you don’t have the time.”

“You do realize it’s rather normal to be busy and distracted during the month you graduate from college.” He had slipped into his terribly superior, I’m better than you are mode of speaking.

“Peter, get real. You know you never gave me a chance to talk with you.”

“So we’re talking, and this is what you have to say?” Peter’s voice went bitter. “What’s happened? Have you met someone else?”

“I haven’t met someone else. I just know I don’t want the life you envisioned.”

“We envisioned.”

“No. It was all you. Law school, living in New York City. I don’t want that kind of life. I don’t want that speed of life. Cocktails and social climbing and competition. The terrible pressure. The lack of sleep, working twenty-two hours a day, trying to be, oh, I don’t know, cunning. I’ve told you that so many times, Peter.”

“You’ve been worried about it, yes, but I promised you it will be okay. More than okay—it will be great!”

“Peter, listen. I don’t want to be married to a man who’s always plotting, conspiring to win at a corporate battle, greedy for more money, a bigger office—all of that.”

Peter sat down on a bench across from her. He was thinking, she knew. He was trying to turn this to his advantage. “You’re just afraid.”

“Oh, God, Peter.” Ari started to laugh at how he’d come up with a way to twist her words. But she stopped herself. Let him have it. Let him believe she was too shy, too unsophisticated, to tolerate living in the city with a husband who was working for a top-notch corporate law firm. “I suppose you’re right,” she said softly.

Now she could go. Now she could leave him, and he would feel that somehow he had won.

To her surprise, Peter came over to her bench and lifted her hand. “Ari, we all get nervous. We all get stage fright. But you can do it, I know you can, and I’ll help you. You’re halfway there. Your father is a surgeon. Your family has a house on Nantucket. You’re beautiful, and smart—you underestimate how smart you are. I’ve always told you that you should major in something more important than childhood education.”

Ari pulled her hand away. “And I’ve always told you there is nothing more important than childhood education. You’ve just never believed me.”

“Ari, that’s minor stuff, nothing to break up over.”

“Childhood education is not minor stuff.”

“For God’s sake, Ari, I’ll be making hundreds of thousands of dollars. You’ll be making pennies.”

“I’ll be making a difference,” Ari said quietly.

“You’ll be making mud pies,” Peter shot back haughtily. The moment he spoke, he squinted in a kind of discomfort, as if he knew he’d said the wrong thing.

Ari let the silence linger while they both absorbed the impact of their conversation. Finally, quietly, Ari said, “Listen to yourself. We aren’t right for each other.” She slid her engagement ring off her finger and handed it to Peter. Pushing herself off the bench, Ari rose. “I honesty, seriously, hand over heart, do not love you, Peter. I’m sorry, but it’s true.”

Peter’s pale face flushed. He stood, too, one hand clenched tight, holding the valuable ring. “That’s blunt. I’m sorry, too. Because I love you, Ari.” He had tears in his eyes.

Ari wished she could cry, too, and she did feel like a terrible person, but she also felt as if invisible ropes were loosening, as if she was almost free.

“Peter, I don’t think you even know who I am. You’re in love with a fictional me, and—and I could never make you happy.” Let him have that, she thought. Let him believe she would be a failure.

“No, Ari, I—”

Ari didn’t wait for the rest of the sentence. She turned and ran.

Maybe she was a wicked, cruel, heartless person, but as she ran away from Peter, toward freedom, she wanted to throw her head back and laugh. She wanted to make victory signs with her hands and wave them in the air. With each step, the bonds of their relationship slipped, fell away, and vanished. She was released.

She surged toward her sorority house. She yelled “Hooray!” to her empty room. She was almost ready for the drive home. Her parents had already come to take most of the boxes of books, winter clothes, silly costumes, stuffed animals. She quickly showered, finished her last-minute packing, and in a kind of controlled frenzy, she finished loading up her old dark green Subaru Forester and hit the road.

It was a seven-hour drive to Boston. She left at three in the afternoon, which meant she’d be home by ten. Maybe eleven if she stopped to pee and get food. She found the eighties music station on her radio, which provided good emotional songs to cry and yell with, and she sang and screamed until her throat was hoarse. Her phone beeped constantly, but she didn’t want to talk to anyone. She